[JSR] Jonathan's Space Report, No. 699

Jonathan McDowell jcm at planet4589.org
Sun Jul 13 15:11:28 EDT 2014


Jonathan's Space Report 
No. 699                                               2014 Jul 13   Somerville, MA
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

International Space Station
---------------------------

Expedition 40 is continuing with ISS in a 412 x 420 km x 51.7 deg orbit.

On Jul 13 the third Orbital Sciences Cygnus cargo ship, SS Janice Voss,
was launched from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island
on an Antares 120 rocket. The 5000 kg Voss carries supplies for the ISS, as well
as two Nanoracks bags containing a total of 29 3U cubesats - 1
Techedsat-4 exobrake technology test for NASA-Ames and San Jose State U,
and 28 Flock-1b imaging satellites for PlanetLabs. They are intended to be deployed
from the Kibo airlock over the coming months. The Voss is scheduled to arrive
at the ISS on Jul 16.


Dnepr cluster
-------------

On Jun 19, launch of a Dnepr rocket from the Yasniy missile base put a record 38 payloads
in sun-synchronous orbits ranging from 550 to 610 km at perigee and 620 to 715 km at apogee.

The largest payload, Deimos-2, is a 300 kg Earth imaging satellite with 0.75m resolution
from Elecnor Deimos of Spain. It is in a 597 x 618 km x 98 deg orbit.

Hodoyoshi-3 and Hodoyoshi-4 are 60 kg payloads built by AXELSPACE for the University of Tokyo.
H-3 carries a 40-m resolution camera, a store-forward comm payload 
and a hydrogen peroxide propulsion system. H-4 carries a 5-m res Earth imaging camera, a comm
payload and an ion thruster.

Kazeosat-2 is a Surrey Satellite SSTL-150 Earth imaging satellite with a 6.5km resolution
for Kazakhstan.

Saudisat-4 is a 100 kg satellite from KACST, Saudi Arabia, with a technology payload
including a graviational reference sensor (similar to the San Marco/TRIAD systems of the 1970s,
I believe, with an isolated mass allowing drag effects to be isolated).

TabletSat-Aurora is a 25 kg tech demo satellite from the Sputniks (Satellite Innovation Space
Systems) company in Moscow.

Tita (BugSat-1) is a technology demo of Satellogic SA (Argentina)'s 22 kg Earth observation
satellite. Resolution of the imager is not known.

AprizeSat-9 and 10 are technology development satellites for SpaceQuest, with AIS maritime
location payloads.

Perseus-M1 and Perseus-M2 are 6U cubesats carrying AIS maritime location payloads
built by Canopus Systems, a California subsidiary of Russia's Dauria Aerospace.

POPSAT-HIP1 is a 3U cubesat from Microspace Rapid in Singapore.

QB50P1 and QB50P2 are 2U scientific satellites forming part of the European QB50 consortium project
coordinated by the Von Karman Institute near Brussels and built by ISIS BV in Delft.

PACE is a 2U cubesat from National Chen Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan, with an attitude
control experiment.

DTUSAT-2 is payload for relaying data from transmitters attached to migrating birds. The
1U cubesat is from DTU in Copenhagen.

DUCHIFAT-1 is a 1U cubesat from Herzilya Science Center, Israel, with a position reporting relay
payload.

NanoSatC-BR-1 is a 1U cubesat from INPE's Southern Center and UFSM, in Santa Maria, Brazil.

PolyITAN 1 is a 1U cubesat from Kiev Polytechnic Institute.

Unisat-6, from the Gauss Team in Rome, is a small satellite for dispensing other satellites.
It ejected Tigrisat, Lemur, ANTELSAT and Aerocube.

Tigris is a 3U cubesat built by students at the University of Roma La Sapienza,
including a group of Iraqi students. The satellite was funded by the Iraqi Ministry
of Science and Technology. (The Iraqi name for the satellite in Arabic is 'Tigris',
the name used by the Italians is 'Tigrisat'.)


Lemur 1 is a 3U technology development cubesat for NanoSatisfi Inc. of San Francisco
with a 5 m resolution Earth imaging system.

ANTELSAT is a 2U cubesat from ANTEL (Administracion Nacional de Telecomunicaciones) of Uruguay
and the University of the Republic in Montevideo.

Aerocube 6 is a 1U cubesat from the Aerospace Corporation (El Segundo, California)
which separated into two 0.5U halves around Jun 22. The satellites carry radiation
dosimeters and are testing upgraded systems for the Aerocube series.

BRITE-Toronto and BRITE-Montreal are Canadian astroseismology observatories with
small telescopes for observation of oscillations of bright stars. It is believed that
BRITE-Montreal failed to separate from the Dnepr final stage and remains 
in its deployer in a 608 x 1453 km x 97.9 deg orbit. (The Dnepr final stage continues
propulsive burning while deploying its payloads, and always ends up in a higher apogee
orbit.)

Eleven Flock-1c satellites for PlanetLabs replenish their constellation of 3U satellites,
each with 3-m-resolution Earth imaging payloads. 28 Flock-1 satellites were launched earlier
this year, but according to Space-Track all but three have now reentered.

PSLV cluster
-------------

India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle put France's SPOT 7 imaging satellite
in orbit on Jun 30. Small satellites from Canada, Germany and Singapore were
ejected as well. CanX-4 and CanX-5 will perform a formation flying experiment.
The Germany agency DLR's AISat-1 carries a ship tracking AIS payload, not to be
confused with Norway's AISSat-1. VELOX-I N-Sat is a 3U cubesat from Nanyang Tech U.
in Singapore, and will eject the tiny 0.25 kg VELOX-I P-Sat.

OCO-2
-----

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 was launched on Jul 2 into a 688 x 694 km x 98.2 deg 
0135 LTDN orbit. It carries a near-IR spectrometer with three bands (two CO2 and one O2)
to map global CO2 sources and sinks. It replaces OCO-1, lost in a launch failure in 2009.
This was the first use of the semi-retired Delta II rocket since 2011.

The Delta 2 second stage made two depletion burns, first to 604 x 3743 km and finally
to 2375 x 10139 km.


Gonets-M
--------

Three Gonets-M low Earth orbit message relay satellites were placed in a 1480 x 1510 km x 82.5 deg
orbit by a Rokot vehicle on Jul 3. The Briz-KM stage (serial number 72522 according to Rui
Barbosa's www.zenite.nu/orbita) made a depletion burn to 1162 x 1505 km.


Meteor-M
--------

On Jul 8 at 1558 UTC Russia launched a Soyuz-2-1B with a Fregat upper
stage. The Blok-I stage entered a 183 x 198 km orbit; the Fregat then
maneuvered to 191 x 813 km and 818 x 828 km x 98.8 deg, where it
deployed the Meteor-M No. 2 weather satellite in an 0900LTDN SSO. The
Fregat then restarted at 1736 UTC to enter a 638 x 825 km orbit, ejected
a payload adapter frame and the Relek (MKA-FKI) satellite which will
study relativistic electrons in the magnetosphere. A further burn to 635
x 635 km was followed by deployment at 1828 to 1832 UTC of the TDS-1,
SkySat-2, DX-1, AISSat-2, and UKube-1 satellites. A mass model of
Canada's M3MSat was also ejected; the actual M3MSat was pulled from the
launch following the Ukraine crisis.

TDS-1 is a UK technology demonstration satellite built by Surrey Satellite.
UKube-1 is a 3U cubesat from ClydeSpace, the first satellite to be built in Scotland.
DX-1 is a technology satellite from the Russian private company Dauria Aerospace.
SkySat-2 is Skybox Imaging's second Earth observing satellite.
AISSAT-2 is a Norwegian-owned, Canadian-built AIS (ship tracking) satellite.

At 1926 UTC the Fregat stage made a deorbit burn to 14 x 665 km and reentered
over the S Pacific at about 2010 UTC. The Blok-I third stage reentered
over southern Australia at 1142 UTC on Jul 10 in a widely observed fireball.

O3b
----

The second quartet of O3b communications satellites was launched by Soyuz from
the Centre Spatial Guyanais on Jul 10 into 7830 x 7840 km x 0.0 deg orbits.
The Fregat stage was left in a 7657 x 7692 km orbit. O3B Networks Ltd, based
in the UK Channel Islands, intends to provide space-based broadband service
to the `other 3 billion' people without internet access. The 700 kg satellites
are built by Thales Alenia/Roma.


Table of Recent (orbital) Launches 
 ----------------------------------
Date UT       Name            Launch Vehicle        Site            Mission    INTL.  

May  6 1349   Kosmos-2495        Soyuz-2-1A       Plesetsk LC43/4   Imaging      25A
May 15 2142   Ekpress AM-4R      Proton-M/Briz-M  Baykonur LC200/39 Comms        F01
May 17 0003   GPS SVN 67         Delta 4M+(4,2)   Canaveral SLC37B  Nav          26A
May 22 1309   USA 252            Atlas V 401      Canaveral SLC41   Comms?       27A
May 23 0528   Kosmos-2496  )     Rokot            Plesetsk LC133/3  Comms        28A
              Kosmos-2497  )                                        Comms        28B
              Kosmos-2498  )                                        Comms        28C
              Kosmos-2499  )                                        Tech?        28E
May 24 0305   Daichi-2  )        H-IIA 202        Tanegashima Y1    Radar        29A
              Raijin-2  )                                           Science      29D
              UNIFORM-1 )                                           IR imaging   29B
              SOCRATES  )                                           Laser Com    29C
              SPROUT    )                                           Tech         29E
May 26 2110   EUTELSAT 3B        Zenit-3SL        SL Odyssey, Pacific Comms      30A
May 28 1957   Soyuz TMA-13M      Soyuz-FG         Baykonur LC1/5    Spaceship    31A
Jun 14 1716   Glonass M55        Soyuz-2-1B       Plesetsk LC43/4   Navigation   32A
               (= Kosmos-2500)
Jun 19 1911   Deimos-2       )   Dnepr            Yasniy            Imaging      33D
              KazEOSat-2     )                                      Imaging      33A
	      Saudisat-4     )                                       Tech        33G
              TabletSat-Aurora)                                     Imaging      33H
              Tita            )                                      Tech        33E
              AprizeSat-9     )                                      Com         33J
              AprizeSat-10    )                                      Com         33K
              Unisat-6        )                                      Tech         33C
              Tigris          )                                      Tech         33AK
              Lemur-1         )                                      Tech         33AL
              ANTELSAT        )                                      Tech         33AA
              Aerocube 6A     )                                      Tech         33AM
	      Aerocube 6B     )                                      Tech         33AN
              BRITE-Toronto   )                                      Astron       33L
              BRITE-Montreal  )                                      Astron       33
              Hodoyoshi-3     )                                      Imaging      33F
              Hodoyoshi-4     )                                      Imaging      33B
              Perseus-M 1     )                                      Com (AIS)    33AF
              Perseus-M 2     )                                      Com (AIS)    33AD
              POPSAT-HIP1     )                                      Imaging      33U
              QB50P1          )                                      Science      33R
              QB50P2          )                                      Science      33Y
              PACE            )                                      Tech         33N?
              NanoSatC-Br 1   )                                      Science      33Q
              Duchifat-1      )                                      Tech         33P?
              PolyITAN 1      )                                      Imaging      33AJ
              DTUSat-2        )                                      Com          33W?
              Flock 1c-1      )                                      Imaging      33T
              Flock 1c-2      )                                      Imaging      33V
              Flock 1c-3      )                                      Imaging      33AH
              Flock 1c-4      )                                      Imaging      33X
              Flock 1c-5      )                                      Imaging      33AE
              Flock 1c-6      )                                      Imaging      33AC
              Flock 1c-7      )                                      Imaging      33S
              Flock 1c-8      )                                      Imaging      33AG
              Flock 1c-9      )                                      Imaging      33AB
              Flock 1c-10     )                                      Imaging      33M?
              Flock 1c-11     )                                      Imaging      33Z
Jun 30 0422   SPOT-7      )      PSLV             Sriharikota        Imaging      34A    
              AISat       )                                          Com AIS      34B
              CanX-4      )                                          Tech         34C
              CanX-5      )                                          Tech         34D
              VELOX-I-NSat)                                          Tech         34E
              VELOX-I-PSat)                                          Tech         34
Jul  2 0956   OCO-2              Delta 7320       Vandenberg SLC2W   Science      35A
Jul  3 1243   Gonets-M No. 18 )  Rokot            Plesetsk LC133/4   Comms        36A            
              Gonets-M No. 19 )                                      Comms        36B
              Gonets-M No. 20 )                                      Comms        36C
Jul  8 1558   Meteor-M No. 2 )   Soyuz-2-1B/Fregat Baykonur LC31     Weather      37A
              Relek          )                                       Space sci    37B
              TDS-1          )                                       Tech         37
              SkySat-2       )                                       Imaging      37
              DX-1           )                                       Tech         37
              AISSAT-2       )                                       Comms AIS    37
              UKube-1        )                                       Tech         37
Jul 10 1855   O3b No. 3    )     Soyuz ST-B/Fregat CSG ELS           Comms        38D
              O3b No. 6    )                                         Comms        38C
              O3b No. 7    )                                         Comms        38B
              O3b No. 8    )                                         Comms        38A
Jul 13 1652   SS Janice Voss     Antares 120       Wallops MARS LA0  Cargo        39A
              
			    
 

Suborbital missions
-------------------

The FTG-06B missile defense test on Jun 22 saw the intercept of a target launched by
a Trident-I-based LV-2 missile launched from Kwajalaein Atoll, using an EKV CE-II interceptor
launched on a GBI missile from Vandenberg AFB in California.

A Terrier-Improved-Malemute rocket was launched from Wallops I on Jul 2 carrying the
SubTec-6 payload. However the second stage tumbled during its burn, and the payload
only reached 8 km altitude.

The Angara-1.2PP rocket was launched from Plesetsk on Jul 9 on a suborbital flight
to test components of the Angara satellite launch vehicle. According to Rui Barbosa's
site www.zenite.nu/orbita the trajectory was -1008 x 189 km x 75.2 deg.
A 1430 kg mass-size payload model (gabaritno-massovogo maketa PN) was sent
to crash into the Kura test range in Kamchatka.


Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches
----------------------------------

Date UT     Payload/Flt Name  Launch Vehicle  Site                   Mission    Apogee/km

May  3 0800   NASA 36.235US    Black Brant IX      White Sands      UV Astron     278 
May  8        Topol' RV        Topol'              Plesetsk         Exercise     1000?
May  8        Shtil' RV        Shtil'            K-114, Barents     Exercise     1000?
May  8        Volna RV         Volna             K-223, Okhotsk     Exercise     1000?
May 20 1708   Topol'-E RV      Topol'              Kapustin Yar     Test         1000?
May 21 0535   Aegis KV         SM-3-IB             Kauai AAMDTC     Test          150?
May 24 0735   NASA 36.285UG    Black Brant IX      White Sands      UV Astron     300?
May 28 1130   REXUS-16         Orion               Kiruna          Atmos/Tech      87
May 29 1000   REXUS-15         Orion               Kiruna          Atmos/Tech      80
Jun  2        USN Mk 4 RV? )   Trident II D-5   SSBN 736, Atlantic  Test         1000?       
              USN Mk 4 RV? )
              USN Mk 4 RV? )
              USN Mk 4 RV? )
Jun  2        USN Mk 4 RV? )   Trident II D-5   SSBN 736, Atlantic  Test         1000?       
              USN Mk 4 RV? )
              USN Mk 4 RV? )
              USN Mk 4 RV? )
Jun 22 1849?  FTG-06B Target   LV-2                Kwajalein        Target       1000?
Jun 22 1855   FTG-06B          GBI                 Vandenberg       Interceptor  1000?
Jun 26 1121   NASA 41.110UO    Terrier Imp.Orion   Wallops I        Education     118
Jun 29        Hwasong 6 RV     Hwasong 6           Kittaeryong      Test          100?
Jun 29        Hwasong 6 RV     Hwasong 6           Kittaeryong      Test          100?
Jul  9 1200   Dummy satellite  Angara-1.2PP        Plesetsk LC35/1  Test          188
Jul 12 1620   Hwasong 6 RV?    Hwasong 6?          Chiha?           Test          100?
Jul 12 1620   Hwasong 6 RV?    Hwasong 6?          Chiha?           Test          100?

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|  Jonathan McDowell                 |                                    |
|  Somerville MA 02143               |  inter : planet4589 at gmail       |
|  USA                               |  twitter: @planet4589              |
|                                                                         |
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